Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast
At Chesapeake Public Schools, we are dedicated to providing a world-class education that empowers every student to reach their full potential and discover their life's purpose. "Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast" is the official podcast of the Chesapeake Public School System, where we aim to share the stories behind our story, celebrate the spirit of learning, and connect our community through the power of audio.
Join us on this exciting podcasting journey as we delve into the heart of Chesapeake Public Schools where we will showcase the stories of students, teachers, parents, and community members who contribute to the success of our school district.
Through engaging interviews, thought-provoking discussions, and informative episodes, we will explore a wide range of topics related to education, innovation, and personal development. We will also keep you informed about upcoming events, initiatives, and opportunities within our school system.
We invite all parents, teachers, students, alumni, and community members to become part of this amazing venture. Your support, engagement, and feedback will be invaluable in shaping future episodes and ensuring that we continue to fulfill our mission of educational excellence.
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Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast
The Power of the Peake
Launched in the fall of 2024, the Power of the Peake is our new Employee Recognition Program and this episode shines a light on the program and our first award recipients in the areas of SUPPORT, TEACH, and LEAD. Listen today as they share their story and why they are the Power of the Peake!
October Power of the Peake Recipients:
- SUPPORT: Van Gholston (Western Branch Primary Custodian)
- TEACH: Laura Labyak (Indian River Middle Instructional Specialist)
- LEAD: Melissa Oliver (Chesapeake Public Schools Director of Assessment & Accountability)
Welcome to Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast.
Speaker 2:Chesapeake Public Schools is located in the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia. We proudly serve over 40,000 students in 45 schools and three centers. Join us as we share the stories behind our story by celebrating the people and programs that make us one of the premier school districts in Virginia.
Speaker 1:Hey, listeners, this is Matt Graham here with Chris Bell, and there is a lot to be thankful for and celebrate, especially during this time of the year, and that is what this episode is all about. We sat down with three of our exceptional employees who were awarded in October as the first Power of the Peak recipients for Chesapeake Public Schools. You know, matt that's right.
Speaker 2:The Power of the Peak is our new employee recognition program, and it was launched in the fall of 2024 and celebrates the remarkable contributions that our employees are making daily in their schools, departments and in the communities. Recipients of the award fall under the three categories teach, support and lead, and anyone in the community can nominate one of our employees simply by visiting our website and filling out a short form.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so part of the premise of this podcast is to tell the stories behind our story, and that's certainly the case for this episode. We spoke with our October recipients Van Golston, the support category winner, Laura Labiak, the teach category winner, and Melissa Oliver, the lead category winner.
Speaker 2:Hey, and it was a good time. Matt, we hope you enjoy the conversations as much as we did, and there's no doubt that you are going to find out just why they were chosen as the Power of the Peak.
Speaker 1:Our first guest and Power of the Peak recipient is Van the man Golston, a custodian at Western Branch Primary. Welcome to the podcast, Van.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:What was it like when you received that award?
Speaker 3:Well, that day it was a big surprise. You know, they called me on the microphone when I came out they were like surprise. And I'm like what is this? And everybody was around and gave me the reward and everything. I was shocked. I was surprised.
Speaker 2:What's the best part about your job at Western Branch Primary?
Speaker 3:Helping people, helping the teachers, the kids. They really motivate me to do more, you know, for the school, because I like to see their little smiling faces and they're always coming to me. Mr Van, thank you for keeping our building clean, thank you for this and thank you for that. And the teachers? They really always. Mr Van, you're always working. You really do a good job. I'm always helping the teachers with a big load or whatever. When they come in, I greet them first thing in the morning because I'm the first one there. I open up the building, I'm always smiling, I'm always telling them good morning. I always say, all right, let's do what we got to do. And they laugh and this and that. It's like a family.
Speaker 1:So what sort of impact do you see that you're having?
Speaker 3:The kindness and the smiles and everything that when I walk up and down the hall and see the teachers and the principal, they are so glad to see me and I'm so glad to see them. It really makes my job worthwhile. Well, you never realize the impact you know that you have on people, especially when you are motivated to come to work and hard days work. You never realize the impact that you have on people.
Speaker 1:Can you share an experience or a memorable moment in your position that you've had so far?
Speaker 3:Well, one moment was the water fountain bust open and the water started to come in all in the floor and everything. And when I looked up all the teachers, they was trying to get the water up. The water was coming out with paper towels and everything. And I'm like, oh, they even trying to help me out. So. But once I got the right equipment to get the water up and then I went and found the way to cut the water off, it just made me realize that the teachers and everybody else, the way they pitched in to try to get the water up, that it really helped me a whole lot, that they really care too, just like I do.
Speaker 1:Has there been someone that has made an impact in your life that has helped you for this role, in this position?
Speaker 3:Well, my wife. She worked for Chesapeake driving a school bus for 26 years and she would get up every morning. I never seen her miss a day out of work. The whole time she was there. So she really motivated me.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like you really have that team atmosphere or that family atmosphere over there at Western Branch Primary.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so proud to be a Bruin right. There you go. You actually, in my opinion, have one of the most important jobs in a school Right, because what you do helps with the culture, the environment, providing that safe environment and so that students, staff, take pride in their school is the hard work that you put in. When you get there and you open up that building, you make sure that building looks clean, it's safe for the students and they can be proud to be a Bruin day in, day out. So from all of us at Chesapeake Public Schools, we appreciate the hard work you do because not one single day is like another year. You know you definitely run into those difficult ones that can seem long and never ending problems right, constantly trying, and then you have a different day right when you're able to help out, and then you see your family, your team, come and assist you. So we thank you for everything you're doing?
Speaker 1:Let's say somebody wants to be a custodian with Chesapeake Public Schools. What would you tell them?
Speaker 3:Have a positive attitude and work hard, and everything will work out. For you.
Speaker 1:We're happy that you're here with Chesapeake Public Schools, and the Bruins are fortunate to have you as their custodian.
Speaker 2:Any shout out you want to give to your Bruins. Go Bruins Way to go, all right.
Speaker 1:Thank you, van the man Golston. All right, thank you. Our next guest and recipient of the Power of the Peak is Laura Labiak, an instructional specialist at Indian River Middle. Thank you for being on the podcast.
Speaker 5:Thanks for asking me.
Speaker 1:Can you go ahead and share a little bit about how you got here with Chesapeake Public Schools?
Speaker 5:I started 35 years ago at Chesapeake Public Schools. I was hired right out of Longwood College. I was an elementary teacher. I was part of the career commitment program. So Chesapeake recruited me and took me around to the schools and I signed a contract and have been here and been happy ever since. So I started elementary and then I taught eight years at Western Branch Intermediate and I went to Crestwood Middle as a reading specialist, was there 17 years and went to Oscar Smith Middle School as the instructional specialist, Spent some time there and then COVID hit and I just had this need to go back in the classroom because we didn't know what we were doing. So I went to Indian River Middle as a history teacher and taught history online for a year. That was an experience and then became the instructional specialist and that's what I'm currently doing now.
Speaker 2:Well, 35 years, so obviously you're enjoying what you're doing.
Speaker 5:Laura, I am.
Speaker 2:Who do you think or there could be multiple people have impacted your career to get you where you are today.
Speaker 5:Oh, I've worked for the best First Carolyn Bedard, I've worked for her, paul Joseph at Oscar Smith High School now, but he was at Crestwood. Jackie Tate was a principal at Crestwood Middle School and now Brenna Stanley. I mean, I just have had wonderful leaders and I just want to go with them and help them and that's what's kept me going.
Speaker 1:Has any one of them had a big impact on you and your career?
Speaker 5:I think it was Carolyn Bernard the first, because when she interviewed me as the reading specialist at Crestwood Middle and I wasn't quite sure I wanted to leave elementary world and I met Carolyn and she was so dynamic and I knew I had to work for her and I knew I had to help her navigate, having a reading specialist in the middle school. So that was it and she taught me about doing what's best for kids, what's best for faculty. She got me to coach, she got me to be a sponsor of clubs and it hasn't stopped since.
Speaker 1:She has a way of getting everyone involved in different things Well.
Speaker 2:she's touched everybody's life in this studio right now. But with your current role or past roles, what's the thing you enjoy most about your job?
Speaker 5:I think it's the involvement with the kids, of course, because I can see them in the classroom learning and then I see them outside the classroom. So it's coaching, it's sponsoring the honor society, it's doing SCA. And this year I took on a role that I was not expecting Now I'm a PTA treasurer. So because we have we're starting our PTA at Indian river middle school. We haven't had one in over seven years, so Mrs Stanley has got that going. So now I'm working with kids and their parents through the PTSA, so that that's been a new thing.
Speaker 2:I think part of getting that power of the peak is you've always stepped up right. And filled that role that's needed in the school. So I heard a rumor. Are we helping out as athletic director? Now too? We are.
Speaker 5:Yes, I am, because I don't have the energy and time to coach, but I want to be a part of athletics, so we have part-time athletic directors in the middle school so I serve as that so I can set up a football field now. I'm really good at lining softball fields, but I haven't had to do that this year, but yes.
Speaker 1:That's great. Now, when you got the Power of the Peak Award, what was that like when you received it?
Speaker 5:Oh, I was stunned because I'm always on the other end of playing surprises on employees. So I had just arranged the Literacy Teacher of the Year surprise and the Teacher of the Year surprise and we do Employee of the Month surprises, so I'm always on that end. So when it happened to me, I was flabbergasted and I was in a classroom and working with kids and it was Halloween. I had a witch's hat on my head and someone asked if they could borrow it and so, okay, I'm working. And then in walks, dr Cotton, and I just could have died because I thought it was for the teacher. And then when they said, no, we're here for you, couldn't believe it.
Speaker 5:It was really sweet.
Speaker 1:What motivates you to work every day with Chesapeake Public Schools?
Speaker 5:Just the success of the students and now the teachers, because there's so much going on with the Virginia Literacy Act and always SOLs and the pressure to succeed. And since COVID, the changing student, because it's not the traditional sit at the desk and open a textbook and learn. I mean we have a whole new student. So it's helping navigate how do we educate the students the best and how do we help the parents at home and who are concerned about their kids. So it's really just whatever I can do to help students and families succeed.
Speaker 2:That's what it's about, laura. You've had such a successful career I think if you're talking to future employees or current employees what's been a challenge you've faced and how have you overcome it to be so successful?
Speaker 5:I think the challenge is just making sure that you know that you get a. You know that you get a fresh start every day. I mean that that's what I love. It's that it changes. And then the year you get a fresh start every September and that's the best, and it's going to end in June and you can wipe that away and then fresh start. That's what I like, and trying new things and trying new strategies and if it doesn't work, put it away, try it again. Some people have jobs where it's just so routine and every day you're doing the same thing. Well, you're not doing the same thing every hour when you're teaching or working in a school or helping teachers. It's just so different. So I think that's what's been the best part about the job and the most challenging.
Speaker 2:You sound like a risk taker to me. I try to take risks. I'm not jumping out of airplanes.
Speaker 5:But, I always tell people you can tell my personality because of working in middle school. I love middle school, so I do corny jokes in the morning, so I'll stand for hall duty and I have a little whiteboard that has a corny joke. Well, middle schoolers love corny jokes, so that's one of the things I do just to engage them as well, because they're kind of sleeping when they walk in.
Speaker 2:Well, and all of us here, we all taught middle school, so you got to have a little bit of a screw loose, you know, to enjoy that middle school child. There's a lot going on there, yes.
Speaker 1:Well, dr Labiak, thank you for coming in today and sharing a little bit about you with our listeners, and I hope that you continue to be in the school system for 35 more years.
Speaker 5:We'll try.
Speaker 1:And our final guest and another recipient of the Power of the Peak Award is Melissa Oliver, the Director of Assessment and Accountability.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 4:I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Can you take a moment to let our listeners know a little bit about your path here with Chesapeake Public Schools?
Speaker 4:I can. It started a very long time ago, back when I was in elementary school and we didn't have Elmer's squirt glue. We had these big jugs of paste, and so the teacher would come around from table to table and overturn a lid and plop some paste on there and give us popsicle sticks to spread the paste onto the paper. And I had this craving to be the person who passed out the paste. So that is what started me in education. I got to pass out the paste.
Speaker 4:And then when you get to high school, I think people have different ideas for your career paths. We took the career aptitude test and all my counselors and all my teachers were like you need to do math and science. You need to do math and science. So I went to the University of Virginia School of Engineering and it was 1985. I was the only female in any of my classes. I had a professor tell me that was a great presentation on magnetic resonance. Imaging, melissa, maybe you should be a school teacher. And then I had another professor tell me that Mr Jefferson never intended heels to be walking this lawn. And in my freshman engineering project group it was five guys and me and the guys wouldn't tell me when they were meeting to do the project. They did it and gave it to me to type at the end.
Speaker 4:So engineering and I'm not going to kid you, it was really hard coursework too, At the same time UVA started the five-year education program so I joined that and was their inaugural class. Graduating from there Got some great opportunities there. Charlie Jubilee and Nancy Park from Chesapeake came up there to Charlottesville for a part of the career commitment program and interviewed me and I can remember when I walked in they were obviously very thrilled that I was from Chesapeake because they thought maybe she'll come, maybe she'll stay, which I did 35 years now. But during the interview I also remember Mr Jubilee asking me about had I taken the national teacher exam Because I was a year from graduating. And I told him I had and I didn't really remember my sub scores but I did remember that the lowest one was the 97th percentile.
Speaker 4:But I'd gotten a letter that morning from ETS Educational Testing Services saying that their answer key was wrong and I was going to get two more points. And his eyes got bigger and his jaw kind of lowered a little and I figured I kind of had the job then. And sure enough I did. I got the job. Happened to be in his daughter's school, in his daughter's grade level and in his daughter's classroom that year.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 4:And she now works for Chesapeake Public Schools as well. So that was kind of fun. And my next job was working with Nancy Park, who was the other person in the interview. So I taught middle school math and science for a while. I taught at Crestwood Middle and Hickory Middle when that opened, Greenbrier Middle when that opened. And then I came to school administration building and I've been here 20 years. I did school improvement planning and program evaluation, which was definitely my passion project. I did school improvement planning and program evaluation, which was definitely my passion project. I was able to help schools get the data that they needed and identify their improvement needs and help our schools improve. And then I came to assessment and accountability about four years ago and became the director about two years ago.
Speaker 1:What a story and a journey right there.
Speaker 4:That was a long-winded answer.
Speaker 1:I mean, but you and a few of the other guests that we've had on here. It just like when you mentioned Nancy Park and some of these other people. It's really that family that it keeps coming up throughout these stories.
Speaker 2:Well, and then the passion you can feel, the passion that you have for your work and to still be here for 35 years. It says a lot to your commitment to education for Chesapeake Public Schools.
Speaker 1:Right, right. You've been with us for 35 years. What keeps you coming to work every single day?
Speaker 4:I have always felt that I had a pretty privileged upbringing and I had a lot of fantastic educational experiences, and I feel like everyone has the right to those educational experiences, and I made it my mission to ensure that people from all walks of life and all situations could have the types of experiences I had. And in the classroom, it was very easy to do that because I had direct interaction with the students. In my current role, I do that by supporting our principals. I try to give them what they need, when they need it, how they need it, in a format that's easily digestible so that they can spend their time supporting the teachers that are impacting lives.
Speaker 2:Well, I think they're feeling that impact because they're the ones who put you up for power of the peak. So keep doing what you're doing. Dr Oliver, it's amazing, but for you to get to the position you're in, who has?
Speaker 4:had the biggest impact on you in your career. The biggest impact on my career trajectory was Rick West. He interviewed me in 1996 to go to Hickory Middle School, when we were first opening the middle school there, and he's always had a keen eye for knowing the whole person. He knows your strengths. He knows your strengths, he knows your weaknesses, he knows what drives you and he's very empowering. He puts you in positions to be able to excel and from the day I met him at that interview I followed him everywhere he went. We opened Hickory Middle that year, we opened Greenbrier Middle together and then, when he retired, I came to SAB.
Speaker 1:And Greenbrier Middle is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year.
Speaker 4:That makes me really old.
Speaker 1:No, not at all. Not at all.
Speaker 2:And Mayor West just won a reelection for the city of Chesapeake.
Speaker 4:And I think those people skills and understanding of people and what makes a team tick that he had here in Chesapeake is also making him highly successful in the larger scheme of things for our community.
Speaker 1:There was a moment that you were like man. That's another reason I'm here every day. What would that be?
Speaker 4:I'll try to get through this story, but it was my first year of teaching and we were decorating for Christmas. So we were putting up the Christmas tree in my classroom and one of my girls in my class stayed after to decorate with me and she was so enthralled by it. It was my grandmother's old tree, it was like old glass ornaments, but she was just holding them and admiring them. How beautiful they were. I had given them a pencil that said Merry Christmas from Miss Smith, and she's like I'm never going to sharpen it. And then she told me that it was going to be her best Christmas ever because her mom told her she was going to go to bed full.
Speaker 2:Yep, and some of those you know. Those are the situations that I don't think the public, you know, hears about that. Our teachers deal with those social issues that are coming in, what's going on at home and before you can get to that curriculum, it's building that relationship with that child and for that student to come out and say that to you, that's a whole lot of trust.
Speaker 4:So there are a lot of times, I think as a classroom teacher, particularly in some of the areas of our city, where you can truly change lives and it's very meaningful.
Speaker 1:Going back to the award, how did that feel when you received it?
Speaker 4:So I think it felt really good, particularly because it was from the people I serve. It wasn't something that was designated from the top down. It was something from the people who I'm here to serve, and so that was very affirming that maybe I am doing what they need and helping them in ways that are valuable to them.
Speaker 2:Well and it shows you the large role you play. Now. You might not be in the classroom impacting that individual child, but the work you do now with the data, putting that in the principal's hands, working with them, impacts more than one child. It impacts those 40,000 students that we have in Chesapeake Public Schools.
Speaker 4:And I think I've reminded myself of that a lot throughout my career because at first you see the direct impact you have on 25 kids and as you move positions in the school division you may not have that direct impact, but you can impact. I genuinely feel like in my role in school improvement, planning and program evaluation I had a smaller but positive impact on 40,000 kids and now I have impact on testing and helping principals, so I really value my ability to help principals get kids through those tests.
Speaker 1:I hope our listeners know that the power of the PEAK recipients, the power that they have in our community, whether you're at NSAB, whether you're the custodian or whether you're teaching there in the classroom, the positive effect that you have had and our other recipients have had is through the roof. I mean it's a great thing. So congratulations again.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 1:We hope you enjoyed the stories behind our story on this episode of Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. Behind our story on this episode of Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. Feel free to visit us at cpschoolscom forward slash Amplified for any questions or comments and make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
